Chapter 772: Honeybun Vs Mutated Mountain Stalker [2]

The golden Mountain Stalker was losing, and it knew it.

Its once-pristine golden hide was now filled with crystal wounds, crimson blood covering its fur, its breath coming in ragged, furious heaves. Honeybun had dismantled it piece by piece, the turtle’s speed and relentless attacks wearing down the Surpasser until the ruler of the mountain stood cornered and bleeding, its ruby eyes burning with desperation and a hint of fear.

It gathered itself for one last gamble, placing everything it had left into a single, massive lunge, golden claws extended, throwing its full strength behind one killing strike meant to crush the turtle that had humiliated it like no other.

It had stood as the king of this region for decades, and never did a beast ever forced it to a corner all bloodied up and on the verge of death.

Having experienced this before, Honeybun saw it coming from a mile away and prepared for it.

The turtle didn’t dodge this time. Instead, in the instant before the Stalker reached close range, Honeybun forced his transformation, his jade shell changing to a golden one.

Within moments, Honeybun dropped into his defensive form.

The Stalker’s claws slammed into the turtle with horrifying force that would have severely injured any other Surpasser rank beast at the same tier.

Unfortunately for the Mountain Stalker, its claws met an immovable fortress, brushing off the shell without leaving so much as a crack, the Surpasser’s final, desperate strike accomplishing nothing against Honeybun’s full defense. For a heartbeat, the Stalker stood there, overextended, its entire body committed to an attack that had failed completely, utterly exposed.

Honeybun seized the moment.

The turtle’s shell spiked with crystals, and from it erupted a massive crystal spear, formed in an instant and driven upward with explosive force straight through the Stalker’s exposed chest.

The sharp crystal punched clean through the golden beast, bursting out its back, and the Mountain Stalker froze mid-lunge, its ruby eyes going wide with shock and pain at the failure of its own attack, as well as the spear that had penetrated its heart.

During the same motion, Honeybun’s shell shifted once more, taking on the familiar jade sheen, and with a final burst of speed it darted up and raked its crystal claws across the impaled Stalker’s throat, finishing what the spear had nearly ended.

The ruler of the mountain collapsed.

Its massive golden body crashed to the rain-soaked valley floor with a wet thud, the crystal spear still jutting from its chest, crimson blood pouring from its throat and mixing with the rain. Its ruby eyes slowly dimmed, the soul-pressure that had unnerved its prey for so long fading into nothing, and the great beast that had commanded an entire mountain of Stalkers went still.

Dead at last.

[You have killed the level 66 A-Rank Mutated Mountain Stalker]

[You have gained 35,250 Lives]

The moment the ruler fell, a change rippled through the valley. The remaining Mountain Stalkers faltered, their team work collapsing in an instinct.

Afraid of death, they broke out from the battlefield, scattering in confusion and fear, their once unified front dissolving into panicked individuals, easy prey for Moon and his team to clean up.

Honeybun stood over his fallen opponent, the crystal spikes receding from his shell, the little turtle radiating fierce triumph.

<Bye bye,> He announced cheerfully to the corpse, apparently satisfied.

Across the valley, Moon lowered his blades and looked over at his turtle standing victorious atop the ruler of the mountain, and a broad grin spread across his rain-soaked face.

"That’s my Honeybun," he said, pride ringing in his voice. "You baited its all-in with your defense, then gutted it the second it overcommitted. A perfect clean finish that suits your battle style, you done great."

The team stared, catching their breath amid the scattering remnants of the pack, watching the unassuming turtle that had just soloed the gate’s ruler without any trouble.

This was something none of them could fully comprehend.

Whatever questions they’d had about Moon and his beasts, they’d long since given up trying to answer them. They simply accepted, now, that their leader stood on a level entirely his own, and they could only gaze from a far.

"If we can’t touch the star, the least we could do is admire it... huh?" Priya muttered to herself more than to her team, deeply motivated by the level of power she had seen from Moon and his pets.

The rain began to ease, the dark clouds thinning, and the valley fell quiet but for the dying echoes of the scattered Stalkers being hunted down, the gate’s heart broken, its ruler slain, the clearance all but complete.

Moon stared at the kill notification for the Mutated Mountain Stalker, and could only shake his head wryly in desblief.

[You have killed a Surpasser-tier Mutated Mountain Stalker]

[You have gained 35,420 Lives]

Over thirty-five thousand Lives gained without lifting as much as a finger against the beast. Honeybun had done all the work, and the turtle had claimed its own share of the rewards for the kill, yet Moon still walked away with this enormous windfall simply through their beastmaster connection.

It was staggering. Surpasser-level body-refiner beasts provided absurd quantities of Lives upon death, a harvest that dwarfed anything a comparable Evolver-tier kill could offer. A single such beast was worth more than entire packs of lesser creatures combined.

A few more B-Rank gates like this, Moon thought, running the numbers, and I’d be sitting on a comfortable half a million Lives in reserve. Enough to level up any skill I need, fuel any merge, evolve whatever I want, without ever worrying about running dry.

The thought brought a satisfied smile to his face. His recent Cryothunder merge had drained eighty-one thousand Lives in a single gamble, a cost that was a little painful at the time but well worth it in the end. However, at this rate of accumulation, that kind of expenditure became very sustainable.

He could afford to gamble on more merges when possible, in hopes of getting a second true Legendary one day, although he doubted that Legendary Skills could be gained through merging.

But there was only one way to find out, and that was by doing.